Saturday, March 10, 2007

Song requests

I had five days left in my vacation yesterday and a thousand things to do. Still, I decided to attend Sanjay's concert at Madipakkam. Now, Madipakkam is not exactly at the heart of the city. It's located in an obscure part of Chennai and getting there is an adventure in itself. To add to the adventure, the Papanasam Sivan Karnataka Sangeetha Sabha that organized the concert decided not to publish the address and phone number of the Sabha. But we (my dad, mom, bro and I) are a determined bunch and decided that we wanted to hear Sanjay come hell or high water. After much asking around and travelling around in circles, we finally made it to the Sabha and that too quite early. I wanted to listen to a Narayanagowla or a Saranga very badly but decided not to request it since it might take away the surprise factor in a concert. The concert was very good starting with the Reethigowla Ata tala varnam, Sankari Neeve, a surprise Narayani, an awesome Thodi and a sparkling Mohanam. After a post-thani piece, I wanted to listen to a thiruppugazh (I guess) 'Malaasai Kopam' that he usually sings just before the mangalam. I sent in a request 'chit' (cheetu kudukardhu in Tamil). I thought he nodded his head acknowledging that he would honor it. After a brilliant viruttham, he sang another krithi and finished the concert.

I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or not. I'd love to know if he had a good reason for not singing that song. I'd be very disappointed if it was just good old arrogance!!

Update: Maybe I just over-reacted to the whole issue. I'll give him the benefit of doubt on this one. Anyway, he is not obligated to honor my request just because I paid for the concert. There's always a next time I suppose!!

2 comments:

  1. Just bad old Sanjay :)!

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  2. Madipakkam ? Obscure part of Chennai? hahaha ....If Tnagar is considered as heart of the city then madipakkam is 10kms from there. Local buses get you there in 30mins. Thatz no so bad considering you have to drive 0-10mph crossing the bay bridge which would take a minimum of 40mins any given day.

    Maybe you should consider taking BART oops MRTS.

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